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Northern Ireland: EuroMillions winner found guilty of taxi driver attack | Northern Ireland: EuroMillions winner found guilty of taxi driver attack |
(about 3 hours later) | |
A Northern Irish woman who won a £27m fortune on EuroMillions has been sentenced to 150 hours of unpaid community service for attacking a taxi driver in a Co Tyrone town. | |
Multi-millionaire Margaret Loughrey was found guilty in Strabane district court on Thursday of causing criminal damage to the driver’s spectacles as well as his satnav system during an alcohol-fuelled outburst in May. | |
The 56-year-old was ordered to pay £559 for the damage she caused to the taxi driver’s glasses. The judge also ordered her to pay the driver £200 compensation. | |
The then unemployed Loughrey won the EuroMillions in December 2013 scooping the £27m jackpot. | |
A Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Service solicitor told Strabane magistrates court that Loughrey, who had no previous criminal convictions, also verbally abused police officers following her arrest after the incidents. | |
The solicitor said the police were alerted to the incidents near the junction of Bridge Street and Chestnut Park in Strabane on 14 May following a 999 call from the driver. | |
The court heard that the driver told police Loughrey was “going mad in his taxi and that she had broken his glasses and assaulted him”. | |
Defence barrister Stephen Chapman said: “It was the amount of alcohol she had taken. She had been drinking vodka and was highly intoxicated after consuming a large amount of alcohol. | Defence barrister Stephen Chapman said: “It was the amount of alcohol she had taken. She had been drinking vodka and was highly intoxicated after consuming a large amount of alcohol. |
“She is a woman with a number of advantages and she accepts that her behaviour on this night was totally unacceptable. | |
“She is somebody who has undergone a significant change in her life in recent years and she has gone about those changes in a positive manner that has benefited many people in many different ways.” | |
The deputy district judge said given Loughrey’s previously unblemished record he accepted it was an example of one-off offending. | |
“You have had more advantages than most people in the last number of years, but they have obviously brought with them some problems,” he told Loughrey. | |
“You have made major contributions to the local community but you will be treated as anyone else who comes before the court with a previously clear record,” he added, before imposing the 150-hour community service order. |
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